What if?...A Blaze of Glory
For those of you playing along at home, we had yesterday a hypothetical posed. A fat job offer that would pull a writer off his or her chosen path to bestsellerdom.
Within this hypothetical situation, I would like to explain the descision made and reasoning behind it.
Suppose, you train your entire life for a specific marathon. You begin the race, and a few miles into it, someone runs up beside you and says, "Hey, ya know over in Chicago, there's this bigger better race. Huge prize money, bennies, prestige, the works. I can get you in. You want to go? But you gotta go right now." Do you break your stride and quit?
Writing, for me is a calling. A calling that has been whispering in my ear for years, slowly getting louder over decades, until now it is screaming at me. I decided to make writing my career four months ago. The first two months I read every book I could get my hands on; about writing, the industry, mystery and thriller related books, blogs, websites, everything.
Two months ago, I joined a critique group. I started blogging a little over a month ago. My website went live this week. In a week I'm going to my first mystery writer's conference. I have 8 completed short stories(3 submitted), 80 pages of a novel series, half of a play, 20 pages of a screenplay, 3 poems, 2 songs, 2 rough chapters of a non-fiction book... and I haven't even broken into a sprint.
It comes down to this - ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR WRITING?
A really good friend of mine once told me about business, "Hey, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it."
So here's what I did; I counteroffered a flexible consulting gig at a high per day rate. I turned down the "job" offer immediately. I sent the counter offer to three former clients with the same terms.
I am far from living under a bridge. I don't live the life style I'm used to but the trade off for me is worth it. And hey, Pabst, Spam, and Ramin noodles don't taste that bad.
My brother likes to say, if your going to go out, "do it in a blaze of glory." My mother says if you're going to mess up you might as well "fuck up at mach-10".
If I faulter, if I fail, it will be one magnificent fire ball...a blaze of glory, fucking up at mach-10.
Within this hypothetical situation, I would like to explain the descision made and reasoning behind it.
Suppose, you train your entire life for a specific marathon. You begin the race, and a few miles into it, someone runs up beside you and says, "Hey, ya know over in Chicago, there's this bigger better race. Huge prize money, bennies, prestige, the works. I can get you in. You want to go? But you gotta go right now." Do you break your stride and quit?
Writing, for me is a calling. A calling that has been whispering in my ear for years, slowly getting louder over decades, until now it is screaming at me. I decided to make writing my career four months ago. The first two months I read every book I could get my hands on; about writing, the industry, mystery and thriller related books, blogs, websites, everything.
Two months ago, I joined a critique group. I started blogging a little over a month ago. My website went live this week. In a week I'm going to my first mystery writer's conference. I have 8 completed short stories(3 submitted), 80 pages of a novel series, half of a play, 20 pages of a screenplay, 3 poems, 2 songs, 2 rough chapters of a non-fiction book... and I haven't even broken into a sprint.
It comes down to this - ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR WRITING?
A really good friend of mine once told me about business, "Hey, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it."
So here's what I did; I counteroffered a flexible consulting gig at a high per day rate. I turned down the "job" offer immediately. I sent the counter offer to three former clients with the same terms.
I am far from living under a bridge. I don't live the life style I'm used to but the trade off for me is worth it. And hey, Pabst, Spam, and Ramin noodles don't taste that bad.
My brother likes to say, if your going to go out, "do it in a blaze of glory." My mother says if you're going to mess up you might as well "fuck up at mach-10".
If I faulter, if I fail, it will be one magnificent fire ball...a blaze of glory, fucking up at mach-10.
